


Keep Your Electric Eye On Me, Babe

by aactionjohnny



Series: watch/ward [1]
Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Drinking, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Outer Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Watch and Ward have their first two-person party on Meteor Majeure.





	Keep Your Electric Eye On Me, Babe

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I don’t think I ship Watch and Ward tbh
> 
> Them: (have a larger role in the series the last two seasons)
> 
> Me: so uh,
> 
> Hbnnngghdjj the title is from moonage daydream don’t @ me

He hasn’t seen Ward this excited since they met Sovereign. That was back when everyone still thought he was responsible for  _ Hunky Dory _ . But it’s been a dry few weeks up here in  _ fucking space, _ and today the supply shuttle is finally docking. Food that isn’t rations, drinks that aren’t artificially made water.

Mac and cheese. Liquor. Tortilla chips. They’re gonna live like kings.

They load in the boxes themselves, the crew of the shuttle eager to get back to Earth for their next run. The Council won’t be around for a few days, so Watch and Ward have the place all to themselves.

It seems like every day they discover some new place here, some nook or cranny they’ve missed. For the first few days they hardly left their shared room, huddled on their bunk beds afraid to look out even the smallest of windows. They’re in  _ fucking space! _

But now they look for the best spots to watch the stars. The widest windows in the darkest rooms. There’s an observatory in the bottom of the station, sticking out like a round porthole. They’ve been afraid to go down there, afraid to lay against the glass and look down at the Earth with nothing between them and the void, the vacuum. 

But they haven’t had a liter of gin until today. 

“You’re gonna pussy out,” Watch says, pouring them each a shot. “There’s no amount of liquor in the world that can make you brave enough.”

“Dick! I have stared down the blade of Brock Samson’s knife! I’ve survived a Battle Royale on a secluded island! I can...I can do this.” Ward tosses back the shot, eye open and staring Watch down. “You’re just trying to get out of it.”

“Whatever makes you happy, dude.” He holds up his tiny glass like a toast, and then downs it wth a grin on his face. 

They position themselves on the ledge above the observation bubble, feet dangling over the bright abyss. Between them there’s a bowl of chips, and gin and tonic water on ice. Been a while since they’ve had a night like this. Used to be  _ on Earth _ , though. Cooped up in that little control room. Now they’re free. Now they’re important, even if they have to sit at a goddamn arts and crafts table.

“To Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, for attempting to preserve our dignity!” Ward says, lifting up his first proper drink.

“And for that time she hugged me!” Watch says in turn.

“Dude no way!! You’re making that up.”

“I swear to god. She was all  _ ‘thank you for all that you’ve done for the Guild!’”  _ He does his best impression of her voice. 

“Damn. Lucky.” He pouts, patting down some of the blond hair that sticks out from under his black hood. An old nervous habit. He tells himself it’s because of the challenge that sits vastly and openly beneath them. Yeah, that’s it. It’s  _ not _ because the last time he had drinks with Watch he’d gotten hammered and made some stupid speech about how  _ ‘if I die in the vacuum of space I want you to know you were my favorite part of being alive.’ _ He never asked if Watch remembers it. Never asked if he remembers them staring one another down with some look of desperation for a few drunken moments, until they both fell asleep in a pile on the floor. “I feel like Captain James T. Kirk.”

“Sisco.”

“Huh?”

“ _ Sisco _ lived on a space station. Kirk traveled around nailing alien women,” Watch says, laughing into the rim of his glass.

“I could do that if I wanted to.” Boyishly, he swings his feet back and forth. 

“But you don’t want to.” 

It’s sounds heavier than Watch meant it to. Deeper and with so much teasing, so much chiding. 

“...no. I want to stay here and rebuild the Guild.” Ward looks down to the drink he holds between his knees.

“Me too.” Watch makes yet another toast. “To the Guild!”

“To the Guild. May we never have to make use of our shitty health insurance.” The only time they ever covered anything was when they needed eye surgery. And that was  _ for _ the Guild.

They drink in silence, sharing chips, tilting their heads at the marvelous sight beneath them. Neither of them will bring up their agreed upon challenge. Maybe it’s just too nice, this. Sitting next to your best friend in the world, above the world. Why spoil it? 

“Alright  _ Major _ ,” Ward says lazily, running with the Deep Space Nine allegory. “Another drink?”

Watch mixes them more cocktails, simple because of the meager ingredients they got from their supply shipment. No limes. They don’t do well in space, apparently. This time they struggle to come up with something to toast to.

“To uh…” Watch places his fingers on his chin in thought. He’s not yet drunk, just feeling a little loose. A little guilty, a little like sense-memory, remembering their last bro-session. He wonders how much Ward meant all that sappy shit he said, or if it was just the red wine and the impending change to their lives. Their life.  _ Inseparable,  _ they’ve been called. “...to my best friend. He’s an idiot but I…” He looks down into the observation bubble.  _ Anywhere _ but at Ward’s face. “There’s no one else I’d rather live on a meteor with.” There’s simply no one else. 

A smile twitches on Ward’s lips. He feels like he could cry. Not very brave of him. He’s hesitant to be soft in front of Watch, ever again. But he  _ started _ it, this time. He raises his glass in turn, tapping them together, and Watch turns his head back to him.

“To my best friend,” Ward echoes. They take long sips of their drinks as if to avoid the fallout from that little exchange, as if to provide an excuse for the red in their cheeks. To make it  _ easier _ . It just makes it so much easier.

They fall back into it, their old routine. Talking and talking and talking. They never stay on one topic for too long. It’s like that Kevin Bacon game, they’ve said before. They start out talking about Star Trek and an hour later they’re rehashing the plot of  _ Dirty Dancing _ . They drift closer together, heads tilted over the dwindling bowl of chips, eventually empty and shoved back into the dark of the room. It ends up as it always does, Ward’s head on Watch’s shoulder, their hair and hoods and goggles all askew. Drinks in one hand, the other arm vaguely around the other’s back. 

Ward is tempted by some drunken foolishness to talk about what Dr. Z told him the other day.  _ There are no guarantees in this line of work, young man. If you find peace in another person, do not wait. _ And then he showed him forty pictures of his wife that he had in his wallet. Ward spent a few hours denying what he  _ knew _ Dr. Z meant by it. And then days, until now. He brims with it:  _ you know, I think Dr. Z ships us. It’s a real Will They Won’t They… _ But he swallows it with more gin.

“Come on, it’s time,” Watch says, patting Ward on the back and finishing off his own drink. “Time to have some balls, my dude.” He scoots forward on the ledge, coughing and cracking his neck. 

“Took you four drinks to work up the courage, huh?” Ward says, tossing back his own cocktail in solidarity. “Watch how it’s done…”

He sidles closer to the edge, fingers gripping hard onto the carpet, and stretches out one leg as if testing the water in a pool. His toes touch the glass of the bubble and he winces. 

“Ho— it’s freaky…” It’s like sticking your leg out into certain death. “You go first.”

“Oh my god, come  _ on,” _ Watch sighs, hooking a hand around Ward’s arm and pulling him down into the glass bubble.

“Fuck—“ Ward clings to him instinctively, color swept from his face as they head toward the vast, clear abyss.

They land together with a thud, Ward on his back, wincing, waiting to hear the cracking of glass. Watch, on top of him with his arms outstretched, hands flat against the glass pane. His lips part, so accosted with a view is such wonder. His best friend, framed by the emptiness of space, colored with the resplendent blue of the Earth. 

When Ward opens his eyes and realizes that they aren’t suffocating in the nothingness, he exhales. It’s nothing, really. He’s been through far worse…

But there’s nothing more terrifying than being drunk, pinned beneath a man you know you should have loved a long time ago. But you’ve been so fucking stupid, so fucking dense—

“Watch…” His gravelly voice is quiet, though it echoes in the odd chamber in which they lay. He places his hands on Watch’s arms. “Now who’s the pussy?” he asks, because he knows it’s still him. But if he can trick Watch into needing to prove he’s not a coward, that he’s not gonna back out while they’re in this joyous, sloppy, compromising position—

“Fuck you,” Watch says, though he smiles. He descends upon him, fingers curling against the glass, dizzy as he should be, up here in space. When they kiss he swears it’s like they’ve done it before. Maybe they have, some stupefied night. But this one, he plans to remember. He plans to remember each second of his hands surrounding Ward’s gaunt cheeks, his fingers through the little tufts of hair that struggle free from beneath his hood. How he can feel him smiling into it. For all their denial, it’s hard to keep it going when it just feels so goddamn perfect. 

Ward lets his knees part. He sinks into the terrifying glass and stretches his skinny arms around Watch’s neck. Somehow he always knew he’d be the powerless one. Isn’t that just like Watch, to take control? And isn’t it just like him, to let it happen? There’s comfort in their predictability. There’s comfort in the sounds of them breathing through their noses, of their uniforms squeaking against the glass as they roll onto their sides. 

They pull away briefly, clinging to one another still, finally sharing an honest gaze.

“...I’m sorry,” Watch tells him, running a thumb beneath his bright red giggle.

“For what?”  _ Dont go breaking my heart, now… _

“That I couldn’t say it back. That night…”

“Oh…”

“I was just too distracted by uh...the thought of you ‘dying in the vacuum of space…’” He frowns, single eye looking over Ward’s face. “Scared me.”

Ward’s bottom lip trembles, and he scoots forward to plant a sweet, quick kiss on Watch’s lips.

“I was being dramatic…”

“You’re always dramatic.”

“Dick!” 

They laugh, curling close to one another, turning their heads to look out the glass into the vastness of space. Heads light, hearts fluttering, it doesn’t seem so scary anymore. The emptiness, the longing. Out here in the void, alone together. There’s no one else.

**Author's Note:**

> Ward it’s not called “shipping” when it’s real life.
> 
> I’ll write more of them if y’all enjoyed this!!!!


End file.
